Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Fair Labor Standards Act or Wages and Hours Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1938 to establish minimum living standards for workers engaged directly or indirectly in interstate commerce, including ...

(Encyclopedia) Freedom of Information Act (1966), law requiring that U.S. government agencies release their records to the public on request, unless the information sought falls into a category specifically exempted...

(Encyclopedia) Posse Comitatus Act, 1878, U.S. federal law that makes it a crime to use the military as a domestic police force in the United States under most circumstances. The law was designed to end the use of f...

(Encyclopedia) National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate ...

(Encyclopedia) Americans with Disabilities Act, U.S. civil-rights law, enacted 1990, that forbids discrimination of various sorts against persons with physical or mental handicaps. Its primary emphasis is on enablin...

(Encyclopedia) North American Indian music: see Native American music. ...

(Encyclopedia) Osceola ŏsēōˈlə, ō– [key], c.1800–1838, leader of the Seminole. He was also called Powell, the surname of his supposed white father. In the early 1830s, Osceola was living close to Fort King...

(Encyclopedia) Embargo Act of 1807, passed Dec. 22, 1807, by the U.S. Congress in answer to the British orders in council restricting neutral shipping and to Napoleon's restrictive Continental System. The U.S. merch...

(Encyclopedia) Watie, Stand wätˈē [key], 1806–71, Native American leader and Confederate general, b. near Rome, Ga., as Degataga Oowatie. Of mixed white and Cherokee descent, he favored moving in the face of wh...

(Encyclopedia) Union, Act of. For the union of England and Scotland (1707), see Great Britain; for the union of Ireland (1800) with Great Britain, see Ireland. ...